Ceiling fans primarily have blades that are attached to the motor housing brackets by multiple screws and the like. Screwing the blades onto a ceiling mounted motor is not only difficult to accomplish, but results in most ceiling fans in the market place having visible screws that are unsightly. Furthermore, the underside location of the fastener screws detract from the appearance of the ceiling fan itself. Another problem is from the ceiling fans having to run under continuous vibration conditions where the screws can loosen causing the blades to be accidentally released and result in damages to surrounding property and people in the vicinity.
Furthermore, ceiling fan blades need to be cleaned to remove dirt and dust buildup. Current techniques have relied on manually holding brushes to the blades themselves which inherently tires the muscles in the cleaner's neck, shoulders, arms and hands. This messy cleaning with brushes causes the dirt to fall on both the cleaner and furniture and flooring below the fan.
Attempts have been made at changing the attachment methods for the blades but still fail to overcome all the problems presented above. U.S. Pat. No. 4,884,947 to Rezek describes a cover for covering the blade to motor connections but still uses screw fasteners that have the problems described above. U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,284 to Monrose III et al. is entitled a “Detachable Blades for Ceiling Fans” and U.S. Pat. No. 5,433,585 to Yan has a removable pin connection for ceiling fan blades, but each of these patents still requires screw on brackets for both the motor housing and the blades. Similarly U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,396,352 to Pearce and 5,520,515 to Bailey et al. describe pitch adjustment attachments for ceiling fans but also still require screw on brackets between both the motor housing and the attached blades. A still further problem of many of these detachable ceiling fan type blades is that natural centrifugal forces of the spinning fans increase the chances of dislodging the blades.
Thus, the need exists for a solution to the above presented problems with the prior art.